Cooking Conversions Made Easy: Cups, Grams, Ounces and More
You've found the perfect recipe online, but there's a problem: it's from an American food blog and lists everything in cups, tablespoons and ounces. Or maybe it's from a British baking show and uses grams and milliliters. Either way, you're staring at your kitchen scale wondering how to make it work. Cooking conversions are one of the most practical uses of a unit converter, and getting them right can be the difference between a perfect cake and a flat disaster.
Volume vs. Weight: The Most Important Distinction
Before we dive into specific conversions, there's one crucial concept to understand: volume and weight are not the same thing, and they cannot be directly converted without knowing what ingredient you're measuring.
A cup of water weighs about 240 grams. But a cup of flour weighs only about 120 grams, because flour is much less dense than water. A cup of honey weighs about 340 grams, because honey is denser than water. This is why American recipes that use cups can be frustrating for bakers who prefer the precision of weighing ingredients in grams.
When converting between cups and grams, you always need to know the specific ingredient. Our weight converter handles grams and ounces, but for ingredient-specific conversions, you'll need a dedicated cooking conversion chart.
The US Cup System
American recipes are built around the cup as the primary unit. Here's how the US volume system breaks down:
- 1 cup = 16 tablespoons = 48 teaspoons = 8 fluid ounces = 236.6 mL
- ½ cup = 8 tablespoons = 118.3 mL
- ¼ cup = 4 tablespoons = 59.15 mL
- 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons = 14.79 mL
- 1 teaspoon = 4.93 mL
One thing to watch out for: the "metric cup" used in Australia and some other countries is 250 mL, not 236.6 mL. This small difference can add up in large recipes, so always check which cup size a recipe is using.
Oven Temperature Conversions
Another common cooking conversion is oven temperature. American recipes use Fahrenheit, while British, European and Australian recipes use Celsius. Here are the most common oven temperatures you'll encounter:
- 300°F = 150°C = Gas Mark 2 (slow oven)
- 325°F = 165°C = Gas Mark 3
- 350°F = 175°C = Gas Mark 4 (moderate oven)
- 375°F = 190°C = Gas Mark 5
- 400°F = 200°C = Gas Mark 6 (hot oven)
- 425°F = 220°C = Gas Mark 7 (very hot oven)
- 450°F = 230°C = Gas Mark 8 (extremely hot)
Common Ingredient Conversions
Here are some of the most commonly needed cooking conversions for specific ingredients:
- All-purpose flour: 1 cup = 120–125 g
- Granulated sugar: 1 cup = 200 g
- Brown sugar (packed): 1 cup = 220 g
- Butter: 1 cup = 227 g = 2 sticks (US) = 8 oz
- Honey or maple syrup: 1 cup = 340 g
- Milk: 1 cup = 240 g
- Cocoa powder: 1 cup = 85–100 g
Baking is a science, and even small measurment errors can affect the final result. If you bake regularly, investing in a kitchen scale and measuring in grams is the most accurate approach. But when you're in a hurry and just need to convert a recipe quickly, our online calculator is always here to help.